The Origins of Urgent Part 2- Animal Lover uses Social Media to save Thousands of NYC Shelter Animals -

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY URGENT DEATH ROW DOGS

The faces of shelter animals saved through Urgent Part 2 and Pets on Death Row.

By Michael Mullins

Published May 26, 2012

In the last year alone, over 8,100 animals were killed at New York City animal
shelters.

Before receiving a lethal injection, each animal has its photo added to a list which is emailed out the day before to over 150
tri-state animal rescue groups. The list is generally emailed after 5 p.m., leaving rescuers and perspective adopters a 12-hour period to contact Animal Care and Control (ACC) and pull the animal(s) from the list.
If by 6 a.m. the following morning no request has been made on an animal’s behalf, that animal is killed.

According to former ACC New Hope Liaison Emily Tanen, a well-respected animal advocate and rescuer who was fired from ACC last summer, cats are destroyed first in the mornings, followed by dogs. By 2 p.m. most if not all the animals on the previous day’s euthanasia list are destroyed.

In an attempt to save the lives of NYC shelter animals in their eleventh hour, many animal rescuers and welfare organizations use social media sites, such as Facebook, to share photos of these animals in the hopes that someone out in cyber space will come to their rescue.
One of the most well known organizations for posting photos of NYC shelter animals facing euthanasia is Urgent Death Row Dogs or as it’s known on Facebook, Urgent Part 2.

Founded in June, 2010 by Karen Pepp, Death Row Dogs (DRD) has helped save the lives of thousands of shelter animals, while raising awareness among the city’s animal-loving community about what goes on at the city’s kill shelters.

Over the past two years, the nonprofit has advocated for close to 13,000 dogs through its website and Facebook page. According to Pepp, over 9,600 of these dogs have been saved, with DRD having played a direct role in roughly 2,000 of the saved dogs, either through getting the dog fostered or adopted, or providing funding toward the pulled animal’s medical expenses.